In a thoughtful essay entitled “A Patriotic Opposition,” William Kristol writes about how “we oppose the current administration not because we’re ashamed of America but because we are proud of America.”
He says he was proud of America because at times it was on the side of those fighting for liberty and against dictatorship. But things are “more complicated today…when the government of the United States is no longer clearly on the side of freedom, at home or abroad.”
Vice President Vance went to Germany and lectured the Europeans on how their democracy is failing—and turned his back on the duly elected premier of Germany, making a show of visiting the neo-Nazi party leader of AFD. Thus he offers a stunning show of where the current American government feels at home.
“There have been plenty of presidents with whom many of us have disagreed…but there’s been nothing, at least in my experience, that’s challenged our basic pride in our own government until now,” writes Kristol. How to react “when bigotry is given sanction, when lying is routine, when corruption is rampant, when public-spirited officials are forced to resign?”
He cites Abraham Lincoln’s eulogy of Senator Clay, given in 1852, where he praised Clay for championing the “advancement…of human liberty, human right and human nature.” I love that phrase, the “advancement of human nature.” Is this what evolution calls us to?
And healthy religion or spirituality? The advancement of character and thereby the advancement of human nature? Is this what Jesus, the Buddha, Isaiah, White Buffalo Woman, Guadalupe, and so many others were inviting us to? Can healthy government inspire and mirror the advancement of character? Instead of demonstrating the opposite?
Is this the ultimate sadness we feel at the current goings-on by our government. After all, the federal workers who are being fired willy-nilly did work for us all. Making sure the skies are safe—there have been seven plane crashes in the first month of Trump’s administration and the laying-off of mechanics and others at FAA is very concerning.
Immigration courts are backlogged by 3 million cases—and the DOJ just fired 20 immigrant judges. Aid to the poorest foreign nations has been stopped, which means people are dying from not receiving their AIDS medicine and from starvation. Farmers in Kansas and elsewhere are alarmed that their food is rotting in ships instead of feeding the hungry. And on. And on.
Expelling AP reporters from White House press meetings because AP refuses to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America (why not “the Gulf of Trump”?) is a direct attack on the first amendment and is purposeful: To get the press in line. The press must get in line or be gone.
People need to tap into their moral outrage, exercise their conscience and stand up and protest in whatever ways we can. We have to connect to the spiritual warrior in us that allows us to advance our human nature.
*William Kristol, “A Patriotic Opposition,” The Bulwark.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
See Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
And Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
Banner Image: Protestors rally on Presidents’ Day in DC against the actions of the current junta. Photo by Mobilus in Mobili on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you see the trials and tribulations of our time—from democracide and matricide and ecocide—as being an opportunity to grow up spiritually and join with others to make a better democracy and a better relationship to Mother Earth and thereby contribute to advancing human nature?
Recommended Reading
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
6 thoughts on “When Presidents Celebrated the “Advancement of Human Nature””
The Presidential Orders of January 20, 2025
expelling all illegal aliens from the United States,
as threats to national security,
as well as a clearly stated plan
to remove all Palestinians from Gaza,
recall the malicious and murderous
historic precedents of:
1) The notorious Alhambra Decree of 1492
When Tomas Torquemada, the infamous Grand Inquisitor
of the Spanish Inquisition
expelled all Jews from Spain.
2) The expelling Native Americans
from their homelands in the murderous ‘trail of tears’
of President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830.
3) The Nazi imprisonment of all Jews in
concentration, extermination and euthanasian camps in 1941-1942.
4) The Presidential Executive Order 9066
imprisoning all of Japanese descent
as threats to national security
by Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942.
(Rescinded, and apologized for, by Gerald R Ford February 19, 1976.)
I am hoping that the Courts will continue to rule against T’s executive orders and other insanity. T will appeal every one he does not like or agree with all the way to the Supreme Court. If his minions tell him to disregard the Court, then we will have little else to do but act with massive nonviolent civil disobedience in the streets and everywhere else. Radical actions like: mass boycotts, strikes, mass sit in’s, and the like. I purchased a book titled, “Civil Resistance Tactics in the 21st Century” (International Center on Nonviolent Conflict). Their database lists about 346 different methods. Some have said that we could be facing a civil war. T will never end up in prison or be driven from office with impeachment. He wasn’t convicted twice already. MAGA will never give up … so tragic, so infuriating, so incredibly sad. I am reminded of a book titled, “Journey Inward, Journey Outward” that captures what The Center for Contemplation And Action (Richard Rohr) espouses and teaches. Maintaining a peaceful loving center while making good trouble with fierce love at the same time. Comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. We need one another during this time of national emergency. Dancing circles into the night.
Well said.
From 2016 to 2024, I found myself in a near-constant state of outrage at Trump’s actions and statements, and a wavering belief that at some point he would be found sufficiently guilty by one of the courts investigating him for lawless acts to be punished. I watched all the cases brought against him–in my mind the most egregious was the storing of top-secret documents in common quarters at Mar-a-Lago. It has been exhausting. I attended rallies, gave money to Democrats running for office, and worked to get out the vote for Harris. When Trump won, I was devastated and demoralized. It has taken a while to get back into the fray, and we must. On Monday, I was with about 500-700 people at the “Stop the Coup” rally in my small town of 41,000. Assessing my feelings right now, I realize that the outrage is gone. One can’t live that way forever. Trump will never be held to account on this plane. Our country has been overtaken by truly evil forces. So, where is my outrage? It has been replaced by a solid, quiet, fierce opposition that conserves my energy as I use my words, my head, and my body to stand in the way. Pointless as it may seem, we must remain true to the concepts of justice, democracy, and the highest aspirations of our founders–as you say, Matthew, to be mystics in action.
Yes!!! Well stated Matthew! We are being challenged in many ways, personally and as societies around the world, both humanly and spiritually, including our Beautiful Sacred Mother Nature/Earth. May God’s Spirit of Love, Wisdom, Truth, Peace, Justice, Healing, Transformation, Strength, Creativity, Loving Diverse ONENESS continue growing within and among Us in Our continued moral and spiritual evolution as eternal souls to help bring about Our Source~Co-Creator’s Queendom~Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven!
It’s so easy to become enraged 24/7 that we could lose our ability to focus on the issue and take just and sane action. But action must be taken. Besiege your state senators and representatives with phone calls. Then call others in Congress. Ask them if January 6th was a peaceful protest, as many have proclaimed, why did they all run away and hide? Why didn’t you stand your ground in the Rotunda and greet these ‘peaceful?” protesters? Then ask why did they change their tune after 1/6, from blasting Trump and saying he bore culpability for the insurrection, to now bowing at his feet, like frightened, subservient lemmings.
In between, take care of yourself: meditate, walk, exercise. That’s a good recharge. Then act again. We will overcome together!